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Jamie Dupree's Washington Insider

Posted: 3:48 p.m. Thursday, March 26, 2009

Budget Step 1 

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By Jamie Dupree

With a minimal amount of changes, the Obama Budget outline is now on its way to the full House and Senate for votes next week.

After the House Budget Committee gave the plan approval late Wednesday night, the Senate Budget Committee followed on Thursday, with another party line vote.

The so-called "budget resolution" is an odd story to cover, because while it doesn't set out very many details, it does set the parameters for how much money can be spent and raised in terms of taxes.

And on that front, the White House was rewarded with victory, because the budget had only cosmetic changes.

Democrats for example got rid of a planned $250 billion set aside for further Wall Street-type bailouts.  So they "saved" that money.

It was sort of like the Bush Administration, when it wouldn't include money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the regular defense budget for those wars.

Instead, the money would be in an emergency spending bill that usually was "off-budget."

Next week, the budget outline will be up for a vote in the House and Senate, where it should be approved, as enough Democrats will vote for it.

The real battling will come later this year, when Democrats are actually asked to vote on the details of the plan.  That's when more moderate to conservative Democrats will be forced to decide if they're for certain items like new taxes on the oil and gas industry for example.

While this may only be a first step, it's still an important one for the Obama White House.

They have the luxury of extra votes in the Congress in terms of their majorities, and they will need them later this year when lawmakers get down to the fine print.

And speaking of fine print, there wasn't very much when House Republicans released their own budget on Thursday.

They did have a nice, shiny and sporty looking 18 page booklet, which had all kinds of good sayings and buzzwords, but no money details.

Conventional wisdom in the press gallery was that the GOP leadership looked a bit foolish to be ripping the Democratic budget, and not ready to produce a detailed plan of their own.

 
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